A regional comparison of the skills sought by employers for entry-level marketing analytics professionals

This paper is Part 1 of a two-part project. This paper focuses on a cross-region comparison of the demand and employer requirements in job ads posted on LinkedIn for entry-level marketing analytics professionals. This paper comprehensively reviews the skills employers seek when hiring entry-level marketing analytics professionals in three geographic regions. The authors begin by providing a brief history and evolution of the growth in demand for analytics professionals. The authors then discuss the growth in demand for marketing analytics professionals. Next, the authors present the general skills and abilities desired by employers, followed by the evolution and challenges of hiring analytics professionals. The authors present evidence of the growth in marketing analytics worldwide and how it has become a global phenomenon. Using job postings scraped from LinkedIn, this study extends previous research by focusing only on entry-level marketing analytics professionals' skills, knowledge and abilities in the US, the UK and the EU. Content analysis of position descriptions and job requirements was used to determine the similarities and differences within the four broad skillset categories (hard skills, soft skills, software and credentials) in the three geographic areas. The authors present findings across the three regions, clearly identifying where distinct differences were identified in job postings by employers seeking entry-level marketing analytics professionals. The authors then offer an assessment of the challenges to organisations in recruiting employees with the skills desired. Finally, the authors provide emerging and creative methods for recruiting analytics talent in a very complex and dynamically changing environment. Part 2 of this research project will focus on a cross-region comparison of demand and employer requirements in job ads posted on LinkedIn for entry-level analytics professionals, specifically the phrases data scientist, data analytics, business analytics, marketing analytics and digital analytics. The authors will examine the similarities and differences in employer expectations by region.